v3.0e into v3.5e
Almost unrestricted, and why not? It's not like the various problems aren't well known. Heal Spell became an Epic Power. Anybody silly enough to give the Cleric more goodies. I think this adds any number of feats, that mostly won't be problematic, and some PrCs. Not bad. Not too crazy.
Dragon Mag Stuff
Usually, the CO response was Dragon is Broken. But that didn't stop some Dragon Mag material from being brought in, and some classes really needed it. Now, Dragon is not just official, it's Official-Official and it's on these D&D boards now too. There definitely will be some broken stuff, but so what?! Edit it, tag it as borkt, that's easy enough. That's the way CO has always dealt with stuff. Bring it all on.
Pathfinder
So far, they've gotten a collective yawn, but they are official. Chances are their design philosophy won't change CO's approach much at all. Personally, I'm not that interested; but that's not stopping you (!).
Homebrew + Fixes
Yuck. But that's just me. There's a lot of agitation for it, in general. CO can certainly test homebrew. These pop up all the time. And why not? v3.5e has a few warts. Usually this isn't CO material.
4th Edition into v3.5e
I like this least of all, but it is where the new stuff is. Some of it is directly transposable into 3.5e. Can you say Pit Fiend Minion? Fighters always need an upgrade. 4e has it. Why not?!
What do you think?
Its supposed to be fully backwards compatible, but therein lies the real problem.
I'm playing a non-abusive Sorcerer, and thoroughly enjoying it.
As such it's true, it doesn't change the CO approach at all..... one of these days, I am going to sit down and brew up a 3.5X fix-set. But this year is looking unlikely. To be honest, I'm never upgrading to fourth because it killed almost all of my favorite settings and is blatantly incompatible with 90% of the campaigns I've ever run as well as all of them that I am running.
Perhaps; the poly abuse is the main thing fixed (and still, calling it "fixed" may be stretching it). They supposedly fixed grappling et al, but they contradicted themselves apparently in the text (I don't use that stuff, so I'm going by what the Monk player says).
Its supposed to be fully backwards compatible, but therein lies the real problem.
I'm playing a non-abusive Sorcerer, and thoroughly enjoying it.
Non-abusive Sorcerer is actually easy to play with 3.5 too. I'd just rather use F&K Tomes. Approximately the same amount of stuff to read, but the mechanics actually work.
As for 4e.. It needs to die a quick, no make that immediate, death..
I, personally, am fine with Wizards (et al) being more powerful than the rest of us mere-mortals, still. But I'm old-school and prefer high fantasy (where the wizard or the druid behind the throne is the only reason the king keeps his power).
I think that between the Pathfinder rules, ToB stuff for non-casters, the banning of the most offensive PrC's/feats/spells, and a little sanity on my part, I'll have a fairly balanced and familiar system in front of me. Which is all I really want as both a player and a DM. I do like K and Frank's work, and may end up including a bit of it as well.
Links to K and Frank Trollman...
K and Frank Trollman:
Races of War
Tome of Necromancy
The Dungeonomicon
Tome of Fiends
I am still hoping they do the Tome of Gears they promised at one point.
I have looked at the pathfinder beta PDF and I like it alot it fixes some of the little things like the paladin can be played beyond 5th level now and the sorc has class features. It's nothing ground breaking or OMG but its nice to see some effort in that direction. It seems as solid as any d20 system game I have played to date so I think I'll give it a go.
JWO: Tome.
Dude....seriously....awesome. I had no idea they had already 'released' gears. Thank you.
Everyone loves 3.0 -> 3.5 yumminess but what about the wierd stuff like the Ravenloft Campaign setting?
And we can't forget Dungeon Mags. Wasn't WotC trying to impose its officialness?
As for 4.0 I won't touch it with a stick. But I see little need for homebrew to fix stuff: Check this out
I wish somebody updated spelljammer to 3.x
Ravenloft is my second favorite setting only surpassed by dragonlance. I like the little used settings alot it really kind of allows me to do my own thing with it. I like the way you can really personalize things. Granted the DL stuff put out by MWP and sovereign press was amazing. Ravenloft sadly didn't see much love till swords and sorcery acquired it and I think they did a pretty good job. I still think the best book for revenloft is from 2e its domains of dread that was awesome.
I wish somebody updated spelljammer to 3.x
I believe Dragon Magazine updated it early into 3.0
I believe Dragon Magazine updated it early into 3.0
Ah, I forgot about that! Its right before the Epic Handbook was released, I think, as I remember that issue had a pretty cool awakened whale that was an epic Druid... The cover had a frost giant on it... I think there were several installments for Spelljammer.
The co-board in general just I.d.'s stuff that is fun crazy, but difficult.
The problem is that Pathfinder (as far as I have read) fails to fix some of the fundamental issues and still gives Wizards stuff like free metamagic. More like change just for the sake of change rather than fixing anything for real. Perhaps it is just the fact that I have not actually had a Pathfinder game yet.
That came up on Brilliant Gameologists as well - the chief argument against the new Pathfinder rules seems to be, they failed to fix "X".
However, if they fixed nothing (although actually quite a bit of stuff is fixed), it would still be just as good as 3.5, but unlike 3.5, you can expect future support for the product.
Also, Paizo's strength (the publication of excellent adventure paths) will from now on be exclusively Pathfinder, which is reason enough on its own to switch, if like me, you don't like making your own adventures.
As for things they did fix or improve, I would list: Combat Manouvers (grapple, trip, etc - improved, but not fixed entirely - use CMB +12 works OK), Polymorph, Wild Shape, non-class skills, and racial favored classes.
That's with the Beta playtest. I'm curious to see the final release this summer, however, I think our group will be making the permanent switch.
As a DM, I have always been loathe to discourage Prestige classes, because I know (as a player), I can get all the benefits of being Sorcerer X and a whole bunch extra by playing Sorcerer X-Y/PrC Y instead.
With Sorcerer having actual class features (besides spellcasting, yes, I know that's a class feature, and a badass one) as they advance, I am not going to feel guilty saying, "You can't prestige until 10th" or "You are limited to prestige classes X, Y, and/or Z".
It's not a perfect solution, certainly, Spellcasters didn't really *need*, on any level, to have more options, but I feel it gives me more control as a DM, and that's a good thing.
"As for things they did fix or improve, I would list: Combat Manouvers (grapple, trip, etc - improved, but not fixed entirely - use CMB +12 works OK), Polymorph, Wild Shape, non-class skills, and racial favored classes."
hmm ... well if it's gonna be official, it is worth a look
[buttering it up voice] ... and it does come highly recommended ;) ... [/voice]
**
I feel like Smith in the second Matrix movie, beating on The One and getting beaten, just makes me say:
:D
4th Edition into v3.5e
I like this least of all, but it is where the new stuff is. Some of it is directly transposable into 3.5e. Can you say Pit Fiend Minion? Fighters always need an upgrade. 4e has it. Why not?!
Sorry... what do you mean by this?
I don't shun 4e but I'm certainly not as familiar with it as I'd like to be.
4e Fighter gets Rain of Blows power, at level 3. It's 4 attacks.
At level 3.
Kinda like a 5 foot AoE power (sorry I don't know the metric conversion of 5 feet in D&D)
I know it's ~1.5 meters in the so called real world. Give or take the exchange rate of Euros ... ;)
semi-bump
With the board changeover, I figured some new understandings may have come up.
Anybody noticed any 4e + 3.5e mash-ups ??